1. General Background
Dogs and cats are extremely popular as pets. Millions of pet dogs and cats are cared for by their owners in the USA, and many millions more in other nations of the world.
One aspect of proper pet care is grooming. Some types of long-haired cats, but especially many breeds of dogs, should be properly groomed on a regular basis, or at a minimum have their fur cut and trimmed. Regular grooming, whether or not it is accompanied by haircutting, promotes the health of the pet's hair and skin, as well as maintaining a pleasant-looking pet.
Pets are routinely groomed with known hair and fur scissors and electric clippers. The clipping of fur always generates hair clippings. Also, brushing a pet's coat will remove fur being naturally “shed” from the pet's coat. It is desirable, therefore, to have a way to catch, or clean up, clippings and shed or loose hairs; clippings and shed fur are routinely vacuumed from the floor using a vacuum cleaner. It would be desirable also to be able to brush and vacuum a pet's coat during, or immediately after, cutting and/or brushing the animal's fur. However, ordinary large vacuuming systems, such as those used to vacuum a floor, are difficult to use for vacuuming pets directly due to, among other things, their noisy operation and inconvenient configuration.
2. Background Knowledge in the Art
It is known to have small, completely hand-held, battery-powered pet grooming vacuums. Examples of such known devices are those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,799,460 to Kuhl, U.S. Pat. No. 5,074,006 to Eremita, U.S. Pat. No. 5,655,481 to Trahan, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,336,428 to Locke. While small hand-held devices may be quieter, they generally provide a relatively weak vacuum and very short battery life. And merely attaching a generic attachment tool on the end of the hose of a conventional high-powered vacuum (i.e., ordinary floor vacuums powered by 110-volt AC electrical current conventionally available in residences and commercial grooming establishments) does not address the problem of the noise of the vacuum, which is known to be disturbing to may pets, making the final vacuuming of the pet's coat more difficult or impossible. Even known grooming tools adapted to be attached to the hoses of conventional non-hand-held canister type vacuum systems fail to address the problem of system noise that frightens pets. Examples of pet grooming tools attachable to ordinary vacuum hoses include the devices seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,095,853 to Kruger, No. Des. 389,618 to Rosen, No. D444,925 to Monette, and No. 7,347,166 to Roman-Barcelo. Other publication serving as background to the present invention include U.S. Pat. No. 5,462,018 to Louison and No. D444,924 to Henning. The entire disclosures of the patents mentioned in this paragraph are hereby incorporated by reference.
Against the foregoing background, the present invention was developed.